eCommerce 2014: The year of evolution rather than revolution

When it comes to eCommerce, this will be a year of
evolution rather than revolution. We won't see anything
radical per se, rather a maturity of ideas that have been talked
about over the last few years that are only now becoming realistic
for retailers today.

BIG DATA

The term "big data" has been talked about a lot, yet nobody has
really illustrated what it means for the eCommerce world or how to
use it in a realistic and nonabstract way. So, the term became
another irrelevant technical phrase that was mostly ignored, as it
was never positioned in a way that meant anything real.

My view on "big data" is that the "big" element will be taken
away and made more relevant to those who want to use the
behavioural data they have available to them to help grow their
business. The main concept of "big data" is that enterprises are
capturing and storing so much information now in every interaction,
that it can be harnessed for other uses (although most evangelists
championing the term don't really show how exactly to do that).
However, as there is so much data available, how do we know what is
useful and what is not?

During 2013, many retailers found the market in general to be
quite tough. While we saw some brands disappear from the high
street, we also heard a lot of our customers talk about very
competitive trading conditions online.

The headlines spoke about the best "Black Friday" and "Cyber
Monday" recorded, but usually these figures talk about turnover
rather than profit. Furthermore, it seems there were more retailers
with an online presence than ever before, making it difficult for
those looking to capitalise on digital trading with so much
competition around.

There were some of the usual big names claiming they were
capitalising on more people going online to shop, but I believe
these retailers were the ones who had already decided what
information of their "big data" was useful to them and so began to
leverage the data they had about their customers' shopping
behaviour to target them.

PERSONALISED CAMPAIGNS

These aforementioned retailers are mining the "big data" they
have on each customer and grouping them to build relevant campaigns
to target those customers with. They are able to look at their data
and decide, for example, which customers do a lot of shopping, or
those who have an increased 'average order value' (AOV) in October
or November and so they begin to target them with promotions and
vouchers before the main Christmas rush. These retailers are able
to look at the specific product categories that customers have
bought from in the past and decide if there are particular products
they will then recommend to them, with a combined promotion or
voucher. This proactive approach to relevant merchandising can have
a significant impact on AOV and revenue in general.

However, recognising trends in data is only one part of the
issue. The other, using it in an easy and effective way, is also
very important. Many eCommerce solutions have now made it easier to
offer personalised journeys within their systems using business
configured rules, content and data. Personalisation is not new, but
what has been problematic is for retailers to understand how they
can use the tools available to them to create relevant personalised
offerings. The combination of having the data and easily using it
has been a breakthrough for some, but I believe it will be realised
for many more retailers in 2014.

Those retailers doing it already are being quite targeted about
which data in their enterprise they want to mine and so calling it
"big" I think makes it scarier than the reality. Just focusing on a
small set of data that will have a real impact will be realised by
more retailers for eCommerce in 2014 when trying to grow their
businesses. Looking at the little sets of "big data" across the
customer touch points will allow for much better targeted data and
growth. We will start to see a convergence of more relevant data
across different channels becoming more important and being tied
together, where the behaviour of one channel is allowed to affect
the others. For example, what a customer browses for and buys in
store will have an effect on how they are engaged in the digital
world.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Furthermore, social networks will begin to have a much bigger
influence on what and how the customer buys in 2014. While I think
these networks are not quite at the stage where a shopping
transaction will occur (or at least in a way that a customer would
consider secure), the influence of the data on these social
channels will play a big part in 2014. For those who "Like" a brand
or who "hashtag" a phrase will be letting retailers and brand
merchandisers know a lot more about what they actually want, so
they can be targeted with more relevant ads to tempt them to buy,
rather than providing very generalised offerings about what other
people may be buying.

The year just gone has seen a lot of these ideas executed by
those very few retailers who have the budgets to make significant
investments in these areas. While very large investments may not be
necessary, those who do make some investment in the infrastructure
to capture the data, the analysts that can interpret it and the
ecommerce frameworks that can surface the merchandising, will
capitalise on the retail opportunities of "Grey Thursday", "Black
Friday" and "Cyber Monday" in 2014.